The spinal cord injury quality-of-life-23 questionnaire,Iranian validation study

The spinal cord injury quality-of-life questionnaire (SCIQL-23) is an instrument that has been developed for clinical follow-up as well health related quality-of-life (QOL) measurement in people with spinal cord injury (SCI). The purpose of this study was to assess the validity and reliability of the Persian version of SCIQL-23 in individuals with chronic SCI. Medical outcomes study 36 item short-form health survey (SF-36) as well as the Persian version of the SCIQL-23 questionnaires applied to beused in 52 veterans with spinal cord injuries in the Orthopedic Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences from January 2011 to August 2011. Cronbach’s alpha co-efficient computed to test the reliability of the survey. In order to assess the convergentvalidity the correlation of each item of the SCIQL-23 done with each dimension of the SF-36 by applying the Pearson correlation co-efficient. Independent samples t-test used to test power of discrimination. All of veterans were male and married. The mean age of individuals at the time of interview was 49.3 years (standard deviation = 7.9); in a range between 38 and 80 years. Most of them (88.5%) had incomplete paraplegia. Cronbach’s alpha test revealed strong reliability in questions of SCI QOL (Total Cronbach’s alpha = 0.764). A negative significant correlation occurred between physical function and functioning (FUNC) (r = −0.412**), bodily pain and problems related to injury (PROB) (r = −0.313*), vitality (VT) and mood state (MOOD) (r = −0.327*), social function and PROB (r = −0.309*), mental health (MH) and MOOD (r = −0.406**). Furthermore, the Mental component summary (MCS) of SF-36 had a negative significant correlation with MOOD (r = −0.312*). Similar to MCS, physical component summery (PCS) had a negative significant correlation with MOOD (r = −0.276*) in addition to FUNC (r = −0.324*) and PROB (r = −0.318*). Instead, GH (r = 0.455**), VT (r = 0.322*), MH (r = 0.276*) and PCS illustrated a positive significant correlation with global quality of life. The Persian version of the SCQL-23 discovered to be competent in terms of its valuable psychometric properties in assessing the QOL of SCI people by showing excellent internal consistency and no floor or ceiling effect.